The federal government is considering relocating the 69-year-old Ikoyi prison and many other correctional facilities from city centres in the country to other areas, the minister of interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has said.
The hint, which has generated a great fuss over the move to relocate the correctional facility and many others across the nation to rural areas, according to some security experts, once more exacerbates the national divide between the rich and the poor.
While so many Nigerians believe that the security and general safety of every citizen is paramount, others are of the view that relocating such facility which hosts notorious criminals to extreme corners of the country would pose security threats to helpless individuals.
LEADERSHIP Weekend reports that Ikoyi prison, which was built in 1955, is located in the highbrow Ikoyi area on Lagos Island.
Minister of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, gave the hint when he appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme, monitored by LEADERSHIP Weekend.
He said, “Urbanisation has eaten into the setbacks that ought to be around correctional centres in the country.”
Tunji-ojo, who boasted that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration hasn’t recorded any jailbreak, said, “What we’ve had was force majeure, which was Suleja, because that particular correctional centre was built in 1914. It’s about 110 years old.
“President Tinubu was not president a 110 years ago. He inherited 256 correctional centres that needed attention. There is no way he would have completely overhauled it in just one year.
“I must talk about urbanisation. Look at Suleja correctional facility for example, the Suleja correctional centre that came down was only seven metres away from the next house, contrary to what the law stipulates, which is a buffer space of 100 metres. So, this is why we are saying that urbanisation has eaten deep.
“Look at Ikoyi Correctional Centre sharing a fence with (another house). What’s (a) prison doing in Ikoyi? This administration is looking at being able to initiate the process of possibly relocating some of these correctional centres.”
He said the government would soon commence an “inmate audit” across the country’s 256 correctional centres and sanitise them by freeing those who don’t have any business being there in the first place.
Tunji-Ojo said President Bola Tinubu inherited so many old correctional centres that need attention but the government had started the renovation and rebuilding of some of them.
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